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1 






A TORY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



[From the Boston £TQaiiig Transcript, June 5, 1879.] 



A TORY HISTORY OF NEW YORK DURING 
THE REVOLUTIOX.* 



It has become a generally accepted truth 
that every history or narrative concerning 
any matter of variance, strife or controversy 
between two parties, individuals, communi- 
ties or nations, has two sides to it. This 
means that there are two ways of telling a 
story, two sets of facts to be presented, two 
methods of dealing with the same facts, two 
lines and courses of argument, with infer- 
ences, colorings of statement, stress of em- 
phasis, relations of the course of individuals, 
with an ascription of motives and ends to 
either party, with all the consequent conclu- 
sions to be drawn from one or another view 
or construction of the elements and materials 
which enter into any complicated and con- 
tested issue. The intelligent and the candid 
have been led to allow that this duplicated 
rehearsal and summing up of the substantial 
facts of any case is at least possible, if not 
reasonable and just, in every matter of the 
world's history, whether of private or public 
concern. 

It might seem as if there was a single story 
which stood out fairly and fully as an excep- 
tion to this general statement — a story which 
absolutely had only one side to it, viz. — that 
Cain killed Abel. But ethnologists have told 
ns of an ancient city in the central fastnesses 
of eastern Asia, in which dwelt a nation 
called-the Ishudes, I'laimiug to be d<'Scend-_ 
ants of Cain, and who actually invert the old 
Bible story, and insist that Abel was the 
wrong-doer, and Cain the innocent sufferer. 
Now, if that story has two sides to it, what 
incident in the whole series of the world's 
strifes, what controversy, conflict or struggle 
in the long development of human fortunes 
in this distracted world shall we exempt from 
the sweep of the truth above presented as so 
fully verified ? 

The voluminous histories, biographies, mon- 
ographs and addresjfcs on manifold occasions, 
in Congress anil on local celebrations, which 
find their theme in any of the causes, occa- 
sions or actors in our own civil war, have 
made us familiar with the bewildering range 
of uncertainty covered l)y the different selec- 
tions of facts, the ways of jiresenting them, or 
arguing, pleading or drawing inferences and 
conclusions from them. We need no longer 
to go back to any matters of the Old World his- 
tories to find examples of the perplexities 
which are made to invest all the substantial 
elements of a narrative from the different 
ways of telling a story. More than one gen- 
eration will find full occupation among us in 

♦History of New York during the Revolutionary 
War, and of tlie Leading Events in tlie otlier Colo- 
nies at tliat Period. By Thomas Jones, Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the Province. Edited by 
Edward Floyd DeLanccy. Witli Notes, Contem- 
porary Documents, Maps and Portraits. Two vol- 
umes, royal octavo. New York: Printed lor tlie 
New York Historical Society. 1879. 



trying to digest and assimilate the facts 
wliich shall fairly present to an earnest and 
discriminating reader the real origin, method 
and true moral significance of our great na- 
tional war. 

Of our earlier conflict, that which made us 
a nation by securing our independence, it 
may be said thai, as a matter of fact, the 
telling of the story has been so far almost en- 
tirely and exclusively on one side. This 
statement applies with especial force to the 
estimate generally made of the characters, 
motives and conduct of the chief actors, the 
public men, the patriots, the statesmen and 
the military officers who led in, controlled 
and accomplished the great result. The 
glamour of success has invested them with 
all the glory of self-sacrifice, wisdom and 
patriotism. The loftiest virtues have been 
assigned to them. W^e credit them with sin- 
gleness of purpose, sincerity of heart, abso- 
lute self-negation, and the complete merging 
of all private aims, interests and ends in a 
sublime public cause. Even the British his- 
torians and pamphleteers, when writing from 
their own national point of view of the naeth- 
od. the conduct and the chief actors in the 
war which sejiarated us from the mother 
country, though some of them have not been 
sparing of falsehood, misconstruction, in- 
vective and actual slander, have liy no means 
availinl themselves of the materials which 
they might easily have obtained for telling 
the other side of the story coni'crning us. 

Among oursel . es it has been to a very large 
-extent assumed and allowed that there are 
incidents, documents, secret passages and 
critical matters concerning the doings of puli- 
lie bodies and the course or characters of 
public men, which, for many rea.sons, it is 
not wise or desirable to bring under relation 
or discussion in writing the history of our 
Revolution. One might almost infer that 
there had been a concert among our histori- 
ans to this end. Keen and diligent impiiicrs 
into that p'rfion of our annals know much 
which has never got upon the record or in 
print, and which by the tolerance of the past 
has been veiled in an obscurity that in tuir 
days of interviewing, of reporting, and of 
sensational journalizing is inconceivable if 
not impossible. John Jay said that a tru(^ 
and faithful rehearsal of the parts played, the 
acts done, the intrigues contrived and the 
measures approved by the, "patiiots" in our 
struggle, to say nothing of the motives which 
might reasonably be a.scr'ibed to sonu^ of 
them, could not be made on the printed jiage 
of sol)er history, and ought not to be nia<lc if 
it were possible. Higher and nobler ends and 
lessons would by sucli rehearsal he perilled 
and sacrificed liy discred table disclosures, 
though professedly made in the interest of 
trutli. Where the sum and prevalence of aim 
and purpose were righteous, and the evil was 
lirecijiitated and neutralized, and when, ai-- 
cording to the best construction of Washing- 
ton's somewhat dultious motti>, ''Kxitns arln 
prnhal," the result threw back approval nji- 
on the measures which secured it— re- 



>^ 



A TORY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



serve upon all the shailowiiigs of the 
story was kindly, and wise, and right. 

Charles TIk mipson . the secretary of our Rev- 
olutionary Congress through its whole jieriod, 
the man who for integrity and nibleness of 
character, rectitude and intelligence of judg- 
ment, and opportunities of knowledge pos- 
sessed by no other individual, was best qual- 
ifled to write a perfectly faithful and lumi- 
nous narrative of the debates and doings of 
that Congress, of the aims and conduct of its 
members, of the promptings of their several 
constituents and of the secret springs which 
were there worked, did in fact write out with 
care and skill such a full record. And when 
it was completed, ready for the press, rather 
by the proinjiting of his own discreet convic- 
tion than by the advice or remonstrance of 
others, he consigned the manuscript to the 
flames. His avowed motive for so doing was 
that its publication would bring pain or re- 
proach upon those of another generation 
than that with which he had been dealing. 

In every instance in which Jlr. Bancroft 
has criticised or castigated any one of the 
prominent statesmen or military officers of 
our Revolution, he has, for so doing, been 
challeuge<l by a grandson, or other represen- 
tative of the subject that had passed under 
his dissection. 

Common sense, however, would remind us 
that in such a convulsing and exasperating 
conflict as that of our Revolutionary War, 
leaving largely out of view most that trans- 
pired on the public arena, there wo uld be an 



inlinite amount and variety of material fur- 
nished in private, social and domestic life, 
for working out the other than the popular 
and creditable side of the story. The disrup- 
tion of the order and quietude of affairs; the 
suspicions, jealousies, rivalries and intrigues 
which would manifest themselves; the alien- 
ation of friends; the rising uj) of new claim- 
ants to notice and honors: the aggravation of 
smouldering feuds; the sharpening of ani- 
mosities engendered by religious variances; 
the perilling of vested rights and pri%ileges, 
and the inquisitorial espionage brought to 
bear upon the most private affairs of persons, 
high or low in position, with the absolute ne- 
cessity of espousing one side or the other — 
would offer to one who had a large share in 
most or all of these matters the means for 
using a pen with a severe and caustic acri- 
mony. 

But, even after this long introduction be- 
fore we come to deal with the remarkable 
and piquant volumes now before us, we must 
make brief reference to the only other single 
publication which, in its authorship and in 
the circumstances which prompted its being 
written, and several similar conditions, will 
naturally bring it to the minds of readers of 
this significant work. Thomas Hutchinson, 
the native-Viorn but stanchly-loyal governor 
of Massachusetts during the fomenting of the 
heats and disturbances which preceded our 
Revolutionary War and the actual outbreak 
of hostilities, embarked from Boston on his 



voyage to England in .June, 1774, to report to 
the king. 

On his departure he confidently expected 
that he should return in his official charac- 
ter, and that the strife would be pacified, the 
colonies being still held by the mother coun- 
try. He naturally took with him such public 
and private papers as he would need for fully 
acquainting the ministry with the state of af- 
fairs here under the troubled administration 
of his in'edecessor and his own. Having pre- 
viously written and published two most ad- 
mirable volumes of the history of Jlassachu- 
setts down to the year 17o0, besides a volume 
of original papers of the highest value, he em- 
ployed himself till his sudden death abroad 
in 17.S0, midway in the war, in continuing his 
work. The result was a manuscript mainly 
digested from the materials he had carried 
with him. This manuscript was not put into 
print until the year 1828, when, by the earnest 
solicitation of members of the Massachusetts 
Historical .Society, it was published in Lon- 
don, an edition of five hundred copies with a 
special preface being issued for the English 
market, and another of the same numlier 
for Boston. Of course there are special plead- 
ings and partisan statements in this volume, 
and a few sharp personalities reflecting ujion 
the characters, the motives and the measures 
of a few of our popular leaders whom he was 
bound to regard as the prime agents of mis- 
chief, sedition and rebellion in initiating the 
strife with king and ministry. Nor would it 
be by any means fair or just to say that the 
the severest sentences 
his pen about two, or 



refugee governor in 
and judgments from 
possitily three, persons, and upon some offen 
sive popular movements, was prompted by 
lack of candor, by selfish ends, or still less by 
malice. Read with a spirit of candor and 
with needful a.lowancts for the heats and an- 
imosities of the time, the volume is, on the 
whole, creditable to the writer of it, well tem- 
pered, dignified, generally moderate 'n tone, 
authentic in its statements and forcible in 
some of its pleadings. 

The volumes now in our hands, while in the 
points to which we have referred likely to 
suggest to the reader the ijosthumous work 
by Hutchinson, present very many character- 
istics of difference and contrast. The vol- 
umes, con'aining more than fifteen hundred 
pages of text and notes, and generously pre- 
sented in fair type and paper, are issued by 
the New York Historical Society, at the 
charge of "the John D. Jones fund," founded 
by a generous member of the society to se- 
cure the publication of a special series of his- 
torical materials, aside from the generous 
scope of its ordinary publications. Some fine 
engravings and maps enrich the volumes. 
The editor is of kin to the wife of the author. 

The writer of the spicy and most unre- 
served matter which, after lying in reserve 
for nearly a ccnturj', now appears in print, 
was the Hon. Thomas Jones, one of the 
judges of the Supreme Court of the province 
of New York, as his father, the Hon. David 



A TOKY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



Jones, had been before him. Having suffered. 
as we sliall .see, from the personal and official 
attitude of disgust and opposition which he 
assumed in the preparatory and opening 
stages of the Revolution, towards the 
prime movers in them, and his health 
being greatly impaired, leaving behind him 
friends and a large property, he emiiarked 
for England with his wife and niece in 17.S1, 
to use the waters at Bath. He, too, thought 
he should return here to home and jiosses- 
sions under the restored power of the Crown. 
He died in England in 171)2, having, to his 
amazemeiit and liorror, witnessed not only 
the full triumph of rebellion and indejien- 
dence of the colonie.s, but also the ungrateful 
neglect by Great Britain of the ruined Loyal- 
ists, who, like himself, had staked their all of 
worldly good and hopes in faitliful constanc.v 
to their lawfid monarch. He appears to have 
employed himself witli a most sad and em- 
bittered spirit in the composition of this his- 
tory between the years 178a and 1788— a pe- 
riod which, in its distractions and anxieties, 
was almost as dark a one for the new repub- 
lic as had been the years of the war. The 
manuscript passed into the hands of his wid- 
ow, then of his niece, and in 1835 to the pos- 
session of her brother, the late Bishop de 
Laucey of western New York. The sou of 
the liishop. thinking that the inllammatory 
matter in it may now safely be exposed to the 
air, is the editor who sanctions its publica- 
tion. 

The distinctive character of the c ontents 
and tone of these ponderous and well-charged 
volumes is to be referred chiefly to the per- 
sonal sentiments and experiences of the 
writer, deeply embittered as he was by the 
sense of what he regarded as most grievous 
outrages and miseries inflicted upon him for 
not espousing the cause of our independence. 
It was no part of his purpose to vindicate the 
course pursued by the British Government 
towards the colonies, in the measures which 
led to the war or in the conduct of it. He 
does, indeed, avow himself a loving and loyal 
subject of the Crown, warmly attached to the 
mother countr.y, proud of his allegiance to it, 
and happy under the institutions established 
by it in his native province. He was not only 
a zealous monarchist, but a most devoted 
memljer and lover of the Church of England. 
He opens his relation l>y describing the con- 
dition of the province a few years before the 
outbreak of hostilities as marking its golden 
age of peace and prosperity, and, with the ex- 
c«iitlon soon to lie indicated, of frientUy and 
harmonious relations between the prominent 
families and individuals and the people gen- 
erally, though the iiopulatiou was by no 
means a homogeneous one, and there were 
rivalries and discords among the mau.y reli- 
gious sects, cliques, classes, and political fac- 
tions of which it was made up. "Without 
any emphatic argument in iustiflcation 
of the course pursued bj- the British Gov- 
ernment which made the first grievances 
of the colonies, he contents himself with 
such an approbation as would natural- 



ly come from a fondly loyal man, and 
he would evidently have been content 
and happy to have lived and died as a suliject 
of the king, belie^"ing he would do no wrong, 
and that any seemingly oppressive acts of 
administration might have been reconsidered 
and al;andoned under a jiidicious discussion 
of them. Beyond this, however. Judge Jones 
does not go. As to the actual conduct of the 
Administration, its prevailing councils, its 
spirit, its iiltimate designs and the means 
taken to accorajilLsh them, he uses as bitter 
language of protest and disapprobation as 
can be found in the sharpest invectives of our 
patriots. Further than this, the judge, sadly 
unjudicial !is he is, allows himself the utmost 
intemperance of opinion and utterance as to 
the actual conduct of the war by the military 
and civil officers of the Crown. In his view, 
the whole seven years' campaign, in each l)at- 
tle, suspension of hostilities, delay of move- 
ments, cross purposes of prime agents, nego- 
tiations and attempted pacifications, was a 
long succession of lilunders, pro^•oking and 
humiliating failures. The generals who in 
turn held the chief command were all incom- 
petent, imbecile, indolent, luxurious, and in- 
capable of being made to realize their own 
foll.v, rashness and inefficiency. The com- 
missary and pay departments were extrava- 
gant, wasteful, mercenary and grossly dis- 
honest. More than all, and worse than all, 
the processes and terms by which Britain was 
brought to recognize the success of the rebel- 
lion and the Independence of the colonies 
^wei-e f 6 the last degree shainef ul and disgrace- 
ful. The three astute and cunning commission- 
ers sent by us to Paris outwitted and cajoled 
the "baker" Oswald, and the "vintner" 
■SVhitehead, the negotiators on the part of 
Great Britain. The result was a Yankee 
bargain of the most tricky sort. Britain 
gave np immense regions of territory here to 
which the colonies had no claim whatever. 
She was satisfied with getting a promise that 
our Congress would make certain "recom- 
mendations" to the States, whlcii Congress 
had not the slightest jiower to enforce into 
obligations, and which the States treated 
with the utmost slight and contempt. Britain 
also left all the savage tribes which had 
fought and suffered in her cause against us 
utterly unprovided for and at our mercy; so 
that we might claim their native forests by 
right of conquest from subjects and allies of 
an enemy. And, to crown all the disastrous 
humiliations to which Britain submitted in 
the treaty, she was faithless to the solemn 
pledge by which, on the first collision with 
rebellion, she had jiromised to jirotect and 
remunerate all her subjects in the colonies 
who held firm loyalty to her, and suffered for 
so doing. In spite of this jiledge, she left 
thousands of such sufferers — among them her 
own officers in civil life and those who had 
not borne arms — to hopeless exile from their 
homes, to confiscation of their propert.v, and 
to poverty. 

It was while having his own experience of 
this direful lot in England, where, it will be 



A TORY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



remembered, that, as a iion-comhatant, he 
had gone in search of health, miii-way in the 
war, that Judge Jones wrote these often 
burning pages. His thoughts reverted to the 
noljle estate, with its fine manor liouse, on 
Fort Neck, Long Island, left to him l>y his 
father. His wife was a daughter of James 
de Lancey, former chief justice and lieutenant 
governor of the Province of New York, and 
his .social surroundings and affluent circum- 
stances at his home made lite there to him 
very attracti\e. He was, however, childless. 
His health had improved while in England, 
and after the jieace, which he conceived so 
disgraceful a one on the part of Britain, had 
been settled, he thought his longings of heart 
would be gratified liy his being allowed to 
return home. An act of attainder confiscat- 
ing the estates of Loyalists, whether they had 
left the Province or remained in it, was passed 
by the Xew York Assembly in 177!', and this 
forbade the return of refugees on pain of 
death. For a brief period Judge Jones flat- 
tered himself that, by the provisions of the 
treaty in relief of Loyalists, this act would be 
repealed. Bitterly was he disappointed, 
and that bitterness of his own spirit is 
thrown into these pages. The only allowance 
to be made for the acrimony, the asperity, 
the intensely objurgatory tone, and malignant 
personalities which make them fairly bristle 
with passion and contempt, will naturally be 
yielded liy the reader on this score. Crushed, 
mortified, smarting under a sense of wrong, 
impo\"erished, a pensioner on the Crown, and 
looking across the ^vate^Dufy^lTSe?^fiiG■hare- 
ful triumph of men and a cause which he 
loathed and despised, the poor exile might be 
pardoned, if not for feeling as he did, yet for 
writing as he felt. One cannot but think, 
however, that he had very few iiualifications 
needed for the endo%vment and exercise of an 
impartial and judicious mind. He was nar- 
row and bigoted in his prineijiles. It does 
not seem to have been conceivable by him 
that a man holding Republican princi]iles or 
any other religious opinions than those of the 
Church of England could be an honest and 
good man. Being on the toil of the social 
.scale himself, he was wedded to all aristo- 
cratic and exclusive jirerogatives for the few 
favored ones over the masses of the world's 
toilers, and regarded the people as rightfully 
subservient to the purposes ami the prosjier- 
ity of his own pamjiered <-lass. 

While, therefore, for the reasons that have 
been intimated. Judge Jones's unique volumes 
are in no sense a contribution to the defence 
or justification of the jiolicy pursued by 
Great Britain in the conflict with her Ameri- 
can colonies, they have what will give them a 
far more oftensive character to such Ameri- 
cans of the living generation as may feel 
aggrieved and outraged by those large portions 
of their contents which deal so unsparingly 
with their "patriot" Republican and Presby- 
terian ancestors. So we have called the work 
in our hands a Tory history of New York in 
the Revolution. It is a bold, unsparing, 
ruthless, some ■v\ill add a scandalous and 



scurrilous, indictment of the leaders of the 
jjatriotic cause 'n New York. In the homes 
and streets of New York will be found today 
men and women who may read charges 
against their immediate progenitors, not 
merely of the political offences incident to 
lack of loyalty an<l to active sympathy with 
rebellion and revolution, but of various moral 
delinijuencies, mean and di-sgraceful doings, 
duplicity, artifice and fraiul. There is hardly 
a contemptuous or vituperative adjective in 
the "Unabridged" which is not used in these 
pages attached to the names or the deeds of 
the prime agents on the patriot side. 

For the most part Judge Jones writes as an 
historian, without the use of the ])ersonal 
pronoun. His references to himself are as if 
made by another than the writer. But he tells 
his own story over and over again, sometimes 
summarily, once with all the documents 
bearing on his case. Here is an account 
which he gives of himself, and of the 
wrongs which he had suffered. After men- 
tioning the resignation of the justiceship by 
his father in 1773. on account of age and in- 
firmities, he adds — 

"The governor of New York, with the ad- 
vice of his majesty's council, appointed his 
only son. Thomas Jones, Esq., to the vacant 
seat. This gentleman was liberally ediicated 
[he graduated at Yale], served a regular ap- 
prenticeshiji to one of the most emincmt coun- 
sel in New York, was called to the bar, and 
jiraetised in all the courts of record, with 
ln.inor. a fair character and unblt-niislicd repu- 



tation, ills loyalty is well known. Iiis mtej;- 
lity undoubted, and his religion that of the 
Church of England. For his steady adher- 
ence to the cause of his sovereign, his fixed 
opposition to rebellion and the measures 
irarsued prior to its actual commencement, 
he l)eeame extremely obnoxious to the rebel 
powers. In consequence of which he was 
three times a priscnier [on parole], treated by 
the rebels with the utmost severity, indignity 
and contempt [this does not apjiear from any 
evidence which he gives of it, when the 
actual sufferings (jf others of his party are 
considered], suffered a captivity [on parole] 
of nearly a year in Connecticut, was at dif- 
ferent times robbed, plundered and pillaged, 
and at last attainted by the Legislature of 
New York of high treason, and his estate con- 
fiscated to the use of the State." Under the 
impersonality of his authorship, heoften com- 
mends himself, his character and conduct, 
and reports matters as told him "liy Thomas 
Jones. Esq.," that is. himself. He represents 
himself as the victim "of private revenge, 
malice and political resentment." A reader 
will be likely to form but a low estimate of 
his pluck, manliness or magnanimity. 
Of course, all the exiled Loyalists 
were naturally peevish and whining under 
their hard fate. But they took their own 
side, and would doubtless have reconciled 
themselves to the fate which would have 
awaited the other side if their cause had 
failed, and which would have included all 
that the Tories suffered, with a liberal use of 



A TOBY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



hempen halters beside. With all his law, the 
judge could not be made to uuderstand how 
he, a sworn subject of the Crown, could be 
attainted as a traitor to the State of New 
York. 

He lays out his lull force in the use of 
strong and censorious language when he 
essays to trace out what he regarded as the 
cunning plots, the profligate intrigues and the 
wholly selfish tricks and measures of the 
leaders of the patriot party. That he dis- 
closes some discreditable facts about indi- 
viduals may well be allowed, considering 
that his subject-matter is human nature. The 
things that he seems to have hated beyond 
all otliers were republicanism, the assertion 
of their native-born rights by common peo- 
ple, Presbyterianism, and any form of what 
he calls "New England religion." He would 
have agreed with the immaculate Charles II. 
that Episcopalianism was the only religion 
for a gentleman. As an exception, hinted at 
already, to his view of the state of things 
just before the outbreak as representing 
the golden age of New York, he liegins by 
referring the initiation of the rebellion 
to the activity of a factions Republican and 
Presbyterian party some fifteen years before 
the P.evolution, who resisted the establish- 
ment of the full jn-erogatives of the Church 
of England over the heterogeneous commvt- 
nions of the Province. All the mischief was 
traceable "to the lampocnis, artful insinua- 
tions, cunning, sly, dark designs of William 
Smith, father and son, William Livingston, 
jonn mnriTT iSTrorr^ — rtti-nerr — xr., rT^rer van 
Brugh and Philip Livingston, and Thomas 
Smith." These were the originators of all 
that "abuse, scandal, infamy, billingsgate and 
blackguard stuff" which appeared in the 
publications of the patriots. The leaders on 
the other side. Judge Pratt, the De Lanceys, 
etc., were all noble and pure-hearted men, 
chargeable with no fault but hatred of rebel- 
lion and its promoters. "An artful, design- 
ing, cunning, hypocritical, Presbyterian reb- 
el," is the character given of a man against 
whom no act justifying the use of the terms 
is alleged. If the judge talked on this side of 
the water as he wrote on the other side of it, 
it is easy to understand that when he was 
once out of the country it was not considered 
desirable that be should return to it. And 
yet he doubtless knew concerning some actors 
and deeds what warranted him in an occa- 
sional strung expression. 

.Judge Jones says that before the first Colo- 
nial Congress was held, he and others, who, 
as Loyalists, were the chief sufferers for their 
oppo.sition to rebellion, recognized the oppres- 
sive and unwise course which the British 
Administration was pursuing towards us. 
They were ready to take part in any judicious 
and moderate measures of remonstrance, be- 
lieving that by constitutional means and by a 
change of Administration they might secure 
redress without entertaining any purpose of 
sundering or weakening the happy bonds 
which held them to the mother country. To 
this end the Loyalists helped in or assented 



to the sending of delegates to the first Con- 
gress. But the spirit which gained the ascend- 
ency in that body, and which grew rampant 
in its successors, together with the violence, 
the passion, the outrages and the rule of the 
mob which inrtamed the lower classes of soci- 
ety, soon drove him and his friends to take 
the stand by which they sacrificed their 
worldly goods and hopes. His pages are 
aliout equally divided between a statement of 
the wrongs inflicted upon the Loyalists, of 
which he gives many aggravating personal 
relations, and the blunders, corruptions, ex- 
travagance and gross frauds which humili- 
ated the British military and administra- 
tive departments. He does not shrink 
fronl prono\incing General Howe as supine, 
half-hearted in his command, and, in fact, 
treacherous to his own king. The following 
is the judge's summing ui> of the wrecked 
cause: "Had half the pains been taken to 
suppress the American Kebellion as there 
was to drain the British treasury of its cash, 
any one year of the war would have abolished 
rebellion and Great Britain been at this day 
still in full possession of thirteen opulent col- 
onies, of which she has been dismembered by 
the misconduct and inattention of one gen- 
eral [Howe], by the stupidity of another 
[Clinton], and by an infamous ministry, who 
patched up an ignominious peace, to the dis- 
honor of the nation, the discredit of the sov- 
ereign, and to the ridicule of all Europe." 
There is much repetition in the volumes, and 
a frequent recurrence tr and summarizing 
-orcompraints-ttnTr jTTTTages— witiL'il tny suctl" 
a heavy burden on the feelings and sense 
of wrong of the writer. Some very inter- 
esting biographies and sketches of character 
of prominent persons of the time are given, 
with occasional revelations of newly dis- 
closed facts. The brief chapter on General 
Washington, though unsympathizing and 
slightly depreciatory, is, on the whole, cred- 
itable to the writer. The straightforward- 
ness and earnestness of the judge, and the ev- 
ident fulness of his information, make us 
tolerant of some of the defects of his style 
and of the one-sidedness of his narrative. 

Nearly half of the contents of both these 
volnmes consists of notes and documents fur- 
nished by the editor. For his work the very 
highest respect and encomium will be grant- 
ed in full measure by every reailer. He may 
stand as a model for all who shall undertake 
a like laborious office. He shows that he 
possesses in the highest degree every cjuality 
needed to fit him for the task. Years of re- 
search and investigation must have gone into 
his pages. He is dignified, candid and impar- 
tial where anything like comment from him 
on the text which he has illustrated seems to 
be called for. The official papers which he 
has hunted out from their repositories are 
very valuable and luminous as revealing the 
actual state and coloring of the times and 
events. Occasionall.y he qualifies or rectifies 
remarks or assertions which .Tudge Jones had 
made from imperfect knowledge or strength 
of prejudice. So the volumes, with thi.". 



A TOUY HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



generous body of admirable and autlientic 
documents, will be highly prized by that 
class of historical students «lio know that 
the nearer they can come to primary sources, 
the more satisfactory will be their means tor 
a fair and full understanding of the subject 
which engages them. They will also be very 
grateful to Judge Jones for helping them to 



look at the other side of the story of a conflict 
which, as we trace to it such a sum of bless- 
ings in its success for us, must have caused 
those who lost in the stake trials and woes 
so grievous that we can well forgive any de- 
gree of complaining and censoriousness in 
the relation of them. 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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